Seattle chef’s new ‘A Boat, a Whale & a Walrus’ celebrates seasons; dinner at L&E Sunday

I’m sitting outside with a glass of rose getting very hungry leafing through Seattle chef Renee Erickson’s new cookbook “A Boat, a Whale & a Walrus.”

Whenever I go to Seattle, I have to stop in at one of her restaurants — Boat Street Cafe or the Walrus and the Carpenter. This weekend you won’t have to travel at all — chefs Spencer Bezaire and Peter Lemos of L&E Oyster Bar will welcome Erickson on Sunday for a book signing and dinner inspired by her new cookbook.

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FOR THE RECORD
Oct. 8, 10:42 a.m.: An earlier version of this post stated that the names of Renee Erickson’s restaurants are the Boat House and the Whale & the Carpenter. The names of the restaurants are Boat Street Cafe and the Walrus and the Carpenter.
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The menu includes oysters with Champagne mignonette, chicken liver pate and a celery, kohlrabi and walnut salad, followed by roasted chicken with capers and parsnip puree, and more. There will be two seatings for the four-course meal and the cost is $50 per person, not including wine, tax and tip. Cookbooks are $40.

“A Boat, a Whale & a Walrus” opens with a photo of a small boat moored on a tranquil sea between islands off the coast. Seattle photographer’s Jim Henken’s evocative photos make me want to be there, right now.

This woman knows how to live. “Crab really tastes best when you catch it yourself and eat it with friends in front of a sweet summer sunset,” she writes. And here comes the menu and recipes for grilled crab with harissa butter (I’m definitely in for that), grilled mackerel with olive oil and lemon and tartine with chile-marinated anchovies and butter.

Little kids sit in a row on a bench, each holding their strawberry shortcake with cream biscuits on a flowered china plate. This is a book about feasting and unfussy, brilliant food that you’ll want to make again and again.

I’m thinking of adopting her birthday celebration menu for my own this year. “There are always steaks—fat, perfectly grilled rib eyes smeared with salty anchovy butter and drizzled with lemon juice—served with a great French red, like a Cotes du Rhone from Domaine Gramenon.”

She goes on to say, “My birthday bash is also a reliably good reflection of my culinary preferences; there are strong, salty flavors and gentle, herby ones, unabashedly American dishes and European standards.”

I want to be there next year for her annual lamb and rosé dinner, too. “The cut of lamb changes every year, but some things stay the same,” she writes. “We always cook it on a grate over a fire built in a used wine barrel the way Russell’s grandfather did.” And for her annual Normandy dinner and mussels steamed in cider.

It’s a generous book, much more than a collection of recipes from her restaurants, embracing her team and everyone who has helped her along the way. Most of them show up somewhere in these pages—in a story, in a clear-eyed photo, in a recipe.

This is a book that makes you want to get cooking.

Mussels in Cider

(Note: not tested by the Times Test Kitchen)

Serves 8

In Blainville-sur-Mer, a tiny town on Normandy’s Cotentin Peninsula, there’s a quirky little restaurant called La Cale, whose official street address is “La Plage,” or, simply, “the beach.” It overlooks the tidal flats that stretch five kilometers into the sea—an area that accounts for more than 10 percent of France’s oyster production—but at high tide, when all traces of aquaculture disappear, it’s simply a beachfront bistro with a few legs of lamb on an open hearth. It’s homey, complete with picnic tables and a “serve yourself ” rule that explains why patrons cut their own bread, fetch their own water, and choose their own wine from a shelf next to the bar. The rule does not explain why the room is adorned in giant needlepoints of various nudes, both male and female, but the artworks add a je ne sais quoi that I’d miss if I returned to find them replaced with something more modest.

When you order mussels there, they come in the pot they were cooked in, steamed in cider and topped with a generous dollop of creme fraiche, which whoever has thought to grab a ladle gets to stir into them just before serving. This recipe is similar. And as you do at La Cale, you should eat a small mussel first, then use its shell as a utensil to pry the mussels out of the remaining shells.

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 large shallots, thinly sliced (about 1 cup)

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

3 cups dry hard cider

3 pounds mussels, cleaned and debearded

Freshly squeezed lemon juice, for seasoning

Kosher salt

3/4 cup creme fraiche

1/2 cup loosely packed whole tarragon leaves (no stems)

Crusty bread, for serving

In a large, high-sided saucepan or soup pot, melt the butter over medium-low heat. When the butter has melted, add the shallots and cook, stirring, until the shallots are soft, about 5 minutes. Whisk in the mustard, add the cider, then increase the heat to medium-high. Add the mussels and cook, covered, until they begin to open, about 5 minutes. Remove the lid and begin transferring the mussels that have cooked to a large bowl, stirring and prodding until all the mussels have opened and have been transferred to the bowl. (Discard any mussels that do not open.) Increase the heat to high and simmer the cider for 3 minutes, or until it has reduced by about a third. Season the liquid to taste with lemon juice and salt, then reduce the heat to low. Return the mussels to the pot, add the creme fraiche and tarragon, and stir gently until the mussels are warmed through and coated with the cream. Serve immediately, with the bread.

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